Having a military is kind of like having house insurance. you wish you didn't have to spend the money on it, you hope you never have to actually use it, but it would be very irresponsible not to have it.

Its more like buying a very expensive hammer, and “everything looks like a nail”

See: afganistan, expanding africom, iraq, etc

Sometimes my kids act up, so I smash a hole in the fence and call in my home insurance, which kills all the neighbors (and some of the kids).

ie we spend a third of all our tax revenue on housing insurance

where is this "third" figure coming from?

Right here: https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal-bud... except it's actually 1/6.

it's a poor proxy for "a lot"

I figured. I admit I tend to be pedantic about the US military spending figure because, while huge, it is not nearly as large a portion of govt spending as most people think.

As long as you realize everyone feels that exact way.

Everyone does, we know.

You're talking to an audience that didn't see WWII, and mostly didn't see the Cold War.

The ugly truth is that there are plenty of bad guys or people who would be bad guys (some of them in the U.S. admittedly), and a lot of them won't stop without force or threat of force.

I know this isn't a universal opinion but I believe that smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war than starting it.

Good vs. bad does not usually fit the narrative in war. WWI and earlier major wars are hard to figure who was the "bad guy". Many of them lack any clear moral authority and fit more as teams competing for resources.

> smarter military technology has a better chance of ending/stopping/preventing war

A global surveillance network and insect-sized drones that precisely assasinate "enemy" leaders.

Why bother with infantry and big guns etc.?

I think it is better for exercises of large power to be noticeable, because if it can be noticed, then there is at least some hope that misuse could be opposed.

As someone who also is a military researcher, I may be able to help. I have worked on things that if the USA went to war, I know that I have directly contributed to that war.

I truly hate that my research will contribute to killing. I wish that it wasn't necessary. But as events like Crimea annexation and the South China Sea shows, if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss others around. I truly do think the USA is a force for good, and I want that to be there for my following generations.

> if the USA is not there, then other nations are very happy to use their might to boss others around.

This is kind of the same logic that often makes me wish for an extraterrestrial invasion.

An alien species has a much higher chance of treating us all equally, than we do ourselves.

Funny. I wrote a blog post sometime back claiming that an external real or perceived threat is a unifying factor for societies and nations.

So if we want to unite the earth, we need an extra terrestrial threat. It could be asteroid or alien invasion. Now these are less probable, hence we should set up Martian colonies and then just allow the earthlings to do their thing. They will eventually treat Mars humans as a threat. This is our only option to unify the earth.

Simply having an "exit" from the complications on Earth, the possibility of relocating to Mars and starting from scratch, would give a lot of people hope, something to look forward to.

It could also end up being an exclusive resort for the elite of our society to escape to, so they may no longer have to pretend to care about Earth at all.

Sounds eerily similar to concepts in the Sci Fi novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)

> This is our only option to unify the earth

Why do we think that a unified earth will be a good thing? It seems too utopian to me...

Unified as in: Nobody trying to harm each other, or other species, or prevent them from doing their thing.

Why would anybody think that's not a good thing?

> Why would anybody think that's not a good thing?

It sounds boring...

I agree with you, but it's not so black and white.

The atomic bomb is a notable example, and consider Eisenhower and many other military leaders said "there was no reason to use that awful thing." I realize my high school education, and most othet's, led me to believe this wasn't the case.

I'm not trying to say it's wrong, but it deserves a lot of skepticism.

Reading a biography of Oppenheimer explores much of this. One thing is clear, the bomb was used on an essentially defeated enemy. From another angle though, it was necessary to push back Stalin and could be considered not as the last blow of WWII but the first blow in the cold war.

It is difficult to question the possible outcomes if different choices were made but you can be sure that the last 80 years could have been much different and much worse. The bomb did make certain kinds of war impossible, and it is not clear if that would be true if they had not been used when they were.

> One thing is clear, the bomb was used on an essentially defeated enemy.

The bomb were used on an enemy that was sooo defeated that there was a coup attempt by the military between the two bombs to prevent the emperor from capitulating.

I am from the same boat and tottaly agree with you. Many people dont understand how real Russian threat is.

I used to work for a defense contractor and I remember the boogie man of the Soviet Union and how the intelligence community was constantly saying there was likely to be a breakout in new Soviet technology. So our budgets remained fat to fund lots of new spook technology programs. Right up to the day that the Soviet Union collapsed. I started looking with a more critical eye at the supposed threats.

> Vacuums of power in the world will always be filled and a Western invasion/expeditionary force is a much nicer alternative to a Russian one.

In this case you're only speaking for yourself.

Most Asians, from the Middle East through to the South East, would kindly disagree.

Good to know you speak for “most asians”.

I think the political situation in many of those countries speaks volumes. There are very few countries or peoples which have a genuinely positive view of Western occupation. Most countries that have a positive view of "Western" nations above Russia are the ones that are bribed (weapon contracts, free defense, release of political pressure) or bullied (application of political pressure) to have it.

If you spend some time looking at the divisive, genocidal campaigns of the Americans, British and French across Western, Southern and South-Eastern Asia it's not hard to see why.

While Germany isn't an Asian country, my Grandpa was German.

As you can imagine, he had a far more positive view of Western occupation than Russian occupation.

He was not a member of the Nazi party, but was in the military. The story, as best as I can recall: After they ran out of gas, the soldiers were given bicycles and panzerfaust, and told to head East, because the Russians were invading.

He hid in a hole as Russian tanks drove past. He deserted, and went West as fast as he could, deliberately getting himself captured by the invading US forces.

He said he was treated better by the Americans as a prisoner of war than he was by the Nazis as a soldier. I don't think any soldiers captured by the Russians would say the same.

Not long thereafter, the war in Germany ended. While the soviets plundered East Germany, the Americans with the Marshall plan helped rebuild West Germany. My grandfather, having not been a member of the Nazi party, was also treated very well during this period.

Even though allied bombs destroyed 80% of his home city, this earned the US enough goodwill in his eyes (and probably many of his generation) that throughout the rest of his life, he supported the US (even while he didn't agree with everything they did). His daughter ended up marrying an American.

If enemy soldiers thought you'd treat them better after they surrender than they're being treated now, they're not likely to fight very hard. Unfortunately, I think we have an instinctual urge to punish enemies. We like negative sum games.

> There are very few countries or peoples which have a genuinely positive view of Western occupation.

On the other hand, let's consider how popular inter-Asian occupation was.

It depends. If you are comparing it to the one that nearly wiped out the native population on two continents and plundered two more, even the occupation of Korea and China by Japan suddenly starts looking rather attractive, which is a very scary thought, btw

Or let's not, because this discussion doesn't have anything to do with how they view each other as neighbors - it's about perceptions towards "Western" occupation vs. Russian occupation.

Well, it felt like a complaint about Western vs non-Western occupation. Let's restrict non-Western to Russian as you suggest. You go first. How about you opine on Russian vs Western occupation?

eastern block expat also, agree whole heartedly. People who complain about the US have no idea how much worse it would be to have Russia in such a position of power instead.